A report which has also been broadcasted by BBC News has revealed that about 50 persons have been reported dead from an attack by unknown gunmen in a church in Ondo State in Nigeria.
According to an eyewitness, the armed men entered St Francis Catholic church in the town of Owo during a Sunday service. They fired into the congregation and then kidnapped a priest as well as some other church-goers.
No figures for the numbers killed or abducted in Sunday’s violence have been confirmed.
However, a doctor at a local hospital, quoted by the Reuters news agency, said that “several worshippers were brought in dead”. After visiting the church and hospital, state lawmaker Ogunmolasuyi Oluwole told the Associated Press news agency that children were among the dead.
It can be recalled that exactly a week ago the head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria was abducted along with two other clerics in the south-east of the country.
The Methodist prelate said he paid $240,000 (£190,000) to be freed with his companions.
Two weeks ago, two Catholic priests were kidnapped in Katsina, President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state in the north of the country. They have not been released.
In a series of tweets, Ondo state Governor Rotimi Akeredolu called it a “vile and satanic attack” on innocent people . He appealed for calm urging people not to take the law into their own hands.
“We shall commit every available resource to hunt down these assailants and make them pay,” he added.
